Page 153 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Slow Burn

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That’s how it is when you’re a new detective: do all the legwork,
get none of the credit. Not that Lt. Gramercy exploited her partners
any more than the other senior detectives. She simply assumed you
were there to do the job as she saw it. Some of the other guys at my
level poked fun at her, but I could see it came out of respect, almost
fear. She was good, and she didn’t suffer fools lightly. Someday I
would get a promotion and do things my way. There were plenty of
cases, enough to keep us all busy, and I could transfer out to the
suburbs. Maybe there I wouldn’t forever be looked upon as one of
her assistants or disciples, held to the impossible standards she set.
As usual, I made the arrangements, told Capt. Nimeau where we
were going and rushed out to the street. Labelle was already parked
and waiting, passing the time by rapidly punching the license
numbers of passing cars into the dashboard terminal. It was a new
toy back then in 1991, and she had mastered the software quickly. If
any of those cars had been stolen, she would have been off in hot
pursuit with or without me, the smoldering corpse on Avenue 59
temporarily forgotten.
I hopped in and she took off at full speed, lights flashing and siren
blaring. “What’s the hurry?” I asked, checking my seatbelt. “The
guy’s as dead as a doornail. Not even much left for the crematorium,
according to the call.”
“Some clues are biodegradable,” she replied, never taking her eyes
from the road. “The likelihood of establishing time of death
decreases exponentially with time.”
I knew that, of course. Sometimes I liked to play dumb just to see
what kind of lesson she would decide I needed.
We careened around a corner. “If we are very fortunate, Duncan,
we may be presented with the opportunity to examine a very rare
cause of death: so-called spontaneous combustion.”
“So-called?”

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